I need to cool my 2600k @5ghz and my 7970 @ 1250/1850mhz which are my 24/7 frequences. At the moment I am with full custom watercooling but I am changing to a new case that does not support watercooling at all. The case is the Thermaltake Level 10 limited, you know that rare case that cost 800$ 4 yeas ago... I was in love with it from the first sight but couldn't afford it, and recently I found a used one in great condition pretty cheap, so I really want to use it!

I am a fan of silence and air coolers. In my current setup the Laing D5 at setting 3 is OK, though I still hear some humming...
With the new case unfortunately watercooling is a no-go. So I thought I'd go air-cooling and also get rid of the pump noise in the process! I bought a noctua nh-D15 for the cpu and a Raijintek Morpheus for the GPU. However it proved that the case has real clearance issues with the big-sized air coolers. The noctua does not fit in it by a mile! What's worse, it that the case is so limited that there is almost zero information online on which coolers fit (not to mention the few info take into account nehalem cooler position which is slightly closer to the edge of the motherboard and firther away from the pci slots than in 1155/1150 sockets...). With my own measurements only a cooler the size of Noctua U12S would fit and een that in the non-optimal axis (not blowing to the back fan of the case but rather on the gpu).

I am afraid in order to use this case (and I really want to use it) I need to go the AIO route. The case has one 120mm fan position in the typical over the I/O position and a 140mm fan in the front-low position in front of the gpus. So I am thinking of getting a 120mm AIO for the cpu and a 140mm AIO for the GPU with an adapter G10 style...

My previous experience with AIOs is not the best on the noise front. I had a couple of H100 and I found the pump rather noisy and too vibrating at times... Sometimes I needed to get the sidepanel off and hit/tap the block a few times in order to stop the vibrating...totally unacceptable! I don't know if this spesific piece was not the best and if other H100 are better in that regard, but I want to avoid such scenarios...

So my question is, which are the best AIOs I can get with single 120/140 rads on the pump noise front? I don't mind having to undervolt the pumps or lower it thought software or anything and losing performance, as long as it silences them a lot, as the PC will be 90% of the time be in idle and the fans will be at 400-500 rpms at that time so I don't want the pumps to be noticable...
On full load the fans will be running at 1000-1200 rpm so I guess the pump noise will be covered...

My PSU is a seasonig 1000W platinum that doesn't even spin its fan with lower than 550W load, my hard discs are only 2 SSDs, so the only noise will be from 2 gentle typhoons on the 120mm rad (at ver low rpm on idle) and 2 140mm fans on the 140 rad (stil havent decided with ones to put there).

By the way, IMHO a single 120mm radiator on a 5Ghz 2500K should perform rather poorly (for a water cooling setup).

Thanks for the reply!
That Kraken X41 seems decent! I don't know however if its pump was just luck of the draw and refers to this spesific sample, as the X31 in the same review was noisier...

I always have the choice to put the 140mm rad on the cpu and the 120mm on the gpu...but I believe the CPU rarely reaches loads represented by Prime95 (as apps are very badly threaded) whereas the GPU is much more common to run full load...

Assuming I get the X41 for the 140mm rad, any suggestion on the 120mm rad?

Blinky7 wrote:Assuming I get the X41 for the 140mm rad, any suggestion on the 120mm rad?

I haven't a clear recommendation: maybe some more focused community (like HardOCP/HardForum or OCN) may advice you more soundly.

Anyway, it also depends of your source: whether their return policy is similar to Amazon's one, I would give a try either to the Kraken X31 or to the Corsair H75 (please take note: mine is just a not educated guess).

The answer is luck. Asetek has poor QC, although it could be improved with their 4th generation (i think nzxt x41/61 are among those). For other OEMs data is even harder to collect.
Swiftec H220X has a standard WC pump and so can be undervolted and be silent.
Last but not least my H100 pump has always been quiet.

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